Jad­hav leads In­dia to T20 se­ries win over Zim­babwe

HARARE—Zim­babwe had never won a T20I se­ries of more than one match. A chase of 139 on a slow, low Harare pitch pre­sented them an op­por­tu­nity to achieve this, and a nervy fi­nal over from Barinder Sran brought them to within one hit of vic­tory, but El­ton Chigum­bura, need­ing four off the last ball, could only man­age enough power and el­e­va­tion to hit a low, wide full-toss into ex­tra­cov­ers’s hands. In­dia, never quite con­vinc­ing, won by three runs and took the se­ries 2-1.

Until this match, Sran had im­pressed with his new­ball swing but had never re­ally come un­der pres­sure. Now In­dia were bowl­ing se­cond for the first time on the tour, and were de­fend­ing 138. A num­ber of Zim­babwe’s bats­men had got off to starts, but no one had car­ried on. They now needed 21 off the last over, with Timycen Maruma and El­ton Chigum­bura at the crease, both bat­ting on 12. Maruma had shaved six off the tar­get with a mas­sive leg-side clout off Jasprit Bum­rah in the penul­ti­mate over.

Now Sran sent down a length ball, and Maruma, clear­ing his front leg once again, clob­bered it over the mid­wicket bound­ary.

Then Sran brought square leg and fine leg into the cir­cle, and, in look­ing to deny Maruma the scoop over the in­field, slanted the ball too wide out­side off stump.

The pres­sure was firmly on, and a high full-toss fol­lowed, pro­vid­ing width for the slap to the cover bound­ary. No-ball, nine runs to get off five balls, free hit to come.

It was at this point that Sran pulled his death-bowl­ing skills to­gether, send­ing down three suc­ces­sive wide york­ers, all there or there­abouts: dot, dot, sin­gle. Eight to get off two, and Chigum­bura ran down the pitch, slogged, and streaked a lucky edge to the third man bound­ary.